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After rather long absence, I’ve decided to try and start writing again. But now not just specifically Scouting, although that is still an active part of my life (I just ran out of stuff to say!), but going back to what I originally did, write about what is interesting to me or on my mind.

So today we start back with model railways.

I’ve intended to set up a small Hornby Dublo 3 rail layout for a while now as I have been adding to my collection, but not really had anywhere to run the trains.
I had a small oval of track that I made a long time ago which was 2 and 3 rail convertible, but the glue on the centre rail was failing so it was time to do something!
I decided to extend the board as much as I could in the space available and the video shows the results, from the original board, to the extensions to running and a few modifications.
You’ll see some of my locos along with my full collection of N2s (including 2 of my Dad’s). One of these has been restored and repainted, the 2 GWR ones have been repainted (not by me) and one is on a much later chassis than it should be.
They all run, a bit more oiling and dusting is needed, but a couple, including the pre war N2, need re-magnetizing.

The second video is of three of my (Triang) Hornby B12s running together.
The first is the original model from the early 1960s (mine’s a hybrid 60s & 70s version), rather nicely detailed for me by my uncle.
The second is the late 1990s Hornby version, which was the original one, slightly updated and now made in China.
The last one is the rather nice, current, modern, highly detailed version.
I must admit to the 1st one being my favourite, because it was specially detailed for me! Still runs very well for something that is around 40 years old!

Like this:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae, May 1915

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When, in the media, young people are mentioned, it is normally that they’ve done something wrong and there is a lot of “tut tutting” and “the young people of today..” type comments.
There will always be the ‘wrong uns’ out there and sadly they are the ones that are talked about. Case in point, the two 15 year olds that vandalised the school I work at and caused £1000s of damage. But they are the exception not the rule.
This weekend a group of young people from my Scout Group, went to the National Memorial Arboretum to play their drums, bugles and glockenspiels in support of Armed Forces Day.
They played twice to many members of the general public and members of the armed forces both current and retired.
After each performance many people came up to me and the other Leaders to tell us how good and talented the young people are.
Of course I can’t take any credit for this as it is John, the other Leaders and helpers who go and help the young people to learn their routines and the young people themselves, who do all the hard work.
But, to be told by current and ex service personnel, that they are the best drum band that they have seen in years and how impressed they are that 8 year old Cubs can be that good, it is something!
So please watch the 1st Porthill Scouts Drum Corps in action and remember that there are some very talented young people out there!

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Today I’ve done something I’ve not done before as Group Scout Leader. I represented the Group at a book launch (not that I’ve ever attended a book launch in a non Scouting role either!) at the Staffordshire Regiment Museum in Lichfield.

The book is ‘The War History of the 1/6th Battalion The Prince of Wales’s (North Staffordshire Regiment) (T.F.) 1914 – 1918’ by Jeffrey Elson.

Not the usual book to be associated with Scouting, but this one, launched on eve of the 100th anniversary of Britain’s entry into the First World War, lists the names and details of men who served in that Battalion and were killed in action. It also lists those men who were awarded medals for their bravery.

Amongst the men of the Battalion killed and awarded medals was Rev. Frederick Walter Cleveland. Frederick Cleveland was our Scout Troop’s Chaplin while he was curate at St. Andrew’s from 1913 to 1915.

Fr. Cleveland in 1913

He was a Chaplin with the Battalion and was awarded the Military Cross for helping the wounded during the taking of the St. Quentin Canal on 29th September 1918. Sadly he was killed in action a couple of weeks later on 11th October 1918. You canread all about him here on his remembrance page.

Although his story is a very small part of the book, I was pleased to let the author have Fr. Cleveland’s information for its inclusion.

As a Group, we are proud to remember the 18 men from the Troop (that we know of) killed in the Great War (not forgetting those killed in WW2).

The Author

I am proud to have represented the Group so that these men may be remembered in as many ways as possible.

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Matt Hyde, the Scout Association’s Chief Executive, was on Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning talking in the business section about Scouting and the report published saying employers need to give people time off to volunteer (see here).

It was a very good interview and talked about the need for more adult volunteers, girls in Scouting and the chance to give young people exciting experiences.

Sadly at the end of the interview, the interviewer Justin Rowlatt, blew it by saying the infamous ‘DYB BYB DYB DYB’. More like DOH DOH DOH!’

For those of you who weren’t a Cub Scout after 1966, this was said by a Sixer to the rest of the Pack, followed by the Pack replying DOB DOB DOB DOB. This all meant Do Your Best & Do Our Best.

Which is why if people trying to take the p**s say it to me I tend to say, ‘Thank you, I will’! It confuses the living daylights out of them!

The trouble is there is still a perception, especially in the media, that Scouting is stuck in the 1950s and we still DYB and DOB, are Boy Scouts etc and haven’t moved on. Obviously nothing could be further from the truth. But this myth still persists.

Our local Gang Show were on the radio recently and of course the presenter said it. And last month on Radio 2 it started up during a discussion about Scouts. I mentioned on Twitter that the media people at Gilwell must get sick of trying to drag the media forwards over 45 years!

@Kiff76 Phew! Must get very frustrating for @Scoutsscarter & chums having to drag the media’s perception forward 45+ years all the time!

Sadly this will run and run and it doesn’t matter how we portray ourselves, it will still be seen as a part of Scouting.

You may have noticed a lack of anything on here for some time. This doesn’t mean I’ve been off line, but more of a case of being busy with my Group, District & County hats on! After updating a load of websites and posting on social media with multiple accounts (I have to remember who I am posting as!), I’ve normally run out of time. However, I’m still here and will be posting again.

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The Scout Association (TSA) has launched an additional alternative version to the core Scout Promise in order to officially welcome atheists into the Movement.

Following an extensive 10-month consultation process within and outside of the Movement, TSA has introduced an additional alternative version of the Scout Promise that can be taken by those without a faith for the first time in its 106-year history.

The wording of the new Promise for atheists has been announced today. And I think it’s not a bad thing. The main Promise stays as it is but this is an alternative and

Scouting remains fully committed as a Movement that explores faith and religion as a core element of its programme.

I think they’ve done the right thing and not dropped faith as the Guides have done. The announcement has had a positive reaction from both faith leaders and the British Humanist Association (see the SA’s article). Shame the National Secular Society have to be a bit grumpy about it –

“At the same time, we think the Girl Guides’ response to this issue was infinitely superior. Their approach relieves young people of having to make a decision about what they believe at a time in their lives when maybe they haven’t decided.”

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I’ve not been round here much recently, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve not been doing lots of Scouting! I think one of the best things we’ve done recently was our 3rd Family Camp we had back in May. We had a great time and my girls enjoyed themselves so much that by the time we went home on the Sunday afternoon, they were fast asleep!

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been unexpectedly offer a role in the County. I am now the County Web Manager, along with, District Web Manager and Group Scout Leader. I hope they don’t want me to take over the national site (ha – fat chance!!!!).

One of the first things I said to the County Chairman while discussing the role, was to make sure this site was adequately back up (it wasn’t previously) in case of accidents, hardware failure or hacking. So that was one of the first thing I did.

Move forward to this morning. I’m having a little play with the settings of this site, when I click the wrong button and delete my whole site!

Luckily I have backup for this site, so after a bit of uploading and tweaking of settings, here we are!

It does prove that it is essential to have backups in place, so if you have your own site, please ensure you back it all up regularly. And if anyone is interested, I use this one for my WordPress sites (free version 😉 ). Oh and never forget to backup your PC. I had a colleague come to me at work recently saying he’d spilled wine all over his laptop and it had stopped working. He was rather concerned as it had all the pictures of his children since they were born on it! My first question “is it backed up” – reply “no”! Luckily it wasn’t too badly damaged and the photos were saved, but hopefully he’s learned a lesson!

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I’ve not written anything for a while. Not that there hasn’t been any Scouting in my life, just nothing out of the ordinary or exciting / interesting to report.

I was thinking of putting down a few lines today about the death of our ex Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and about some of the nasty, spiteful things people have written online and linking into the Scout law that says “A Scout is Friendly and Considerate”.

However, I’ve changed my mind due to a death a lot closer to home. Ken Johnson, who I have known since I was about 8 or 9 years old, passed away this morning. He’d been in hospital as he’d been receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer and he’d had an operation two weeks ago. Sadly, despite initial good progress, his organs started shutting down and he died today.

Ken had been a Cub in our Pack in the 1950s when his father Amos, was Akela. Incidentally, I’d been scanning some old photos this afternoon and had a couple of Amos and was intending to email them to Ken.

When in 1983, our Scout Troop was restarted, Ken was Assistant Scout Leader, becoming Scout Leader in 1986 when Stephen Padin left us to work for Caltech in California (the commute back for Scout meetings was too much apparently!), Ken became Scout Leader and stayed in this role until about 1990. He remained a supporter of the Group until his death.

There are few of my Scouting memories from this time that do not have Ken in them. From camping and sampling Ken’s home brewed brown ‘pop’, to him driving the minibus and getting us blown off a camp by the tail end of a hurricane(!), him ‘repairing’ me when I tried to saw off my fingers with a bow saw or when I put my hand through a glass window. Then there was his ever present pipe, his deafness and his Renault car that didn’t so much go ‘vroom’, but ‘click, click click’.

He was a kind man, but had a bloody minded streak which meant if he believed he was right, he was!

I last saw him at the Mothering Day service at Church a couple of weeks before Easter, and despite the fact he was due back in to hospital, seemed to be in good spirits. We had a quick chat and I wished him well for his hospital stay (apparently he was please I’d wished him well) and that was it. He was supposed to be out and about by this week and I’m sure I would have seen him soon. Sadly that’s not to be.

Hopefully I’ll be able to go to his funeral to represent the Group (and my Mum & Dad, who’ve known him for years, and are away).

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I was reading one of Scoutmaster Jerry’s recent posts the other day and it contains the news that PTC Media is closing its doors.

PTC hosted a number podcasts made by Scouters in the USA and was run by Cubmaster Chris. His show went out live on a Sunday night for a number of years.

I think I first came across PTC early in 2008 and the podcasts and the people who stopped by the forums gave me an insight how Scouting works in the US. One upshot of listening to the PTC shows was that in late 2008, I started my own podcasts which I did for 20 episodes over the course of a year. Sadly having a baby meant that I didn’t really have the time to produce any more.

And I guess that’s the reason Chris is calling it a day, other things in life take priority and it’s time to move on. Jerry says that the shows will be staying online so they can still be accessed. I guess some shows will keep going (Jerry’s), others won’t.

I always enjoyed the shows and did participate in a couple. I was featured in one of Jerry’s shows where he recorded a chat we had about the differences between Scouting in the UK and US and I actually won a competition run on the Leader’s Campfire show. I got a prize for that, but did feel somewhat guilty because of the extra postage they had to spend just to send it to me!

On a couple of occasions when I didn’t have work the next day, or I’d just fed a baby, I would listen live to Cubmaster Chris’ show ‘An Hour a Week’. It went out live at 9.00pm Texas time, which works out at 3.00am the following morning here. I think people thought I was mad!

So thanks to PTC and the friends I made through it – Chris, Jerry, Shawn, Steve, Jeff, the Misses and Buttons to name a few!